No bank too big to fail, Takenaka says

No bank is too big to fail, Financial Services Minister Heizo Takenaka told the U.S. magazine Newsweek in an interview published Monday on the Internet.

“Big banks have their merits,” Tanaka said when asked if the country’s big four banks are too big to fail. “They enjoy economies of scale. . . . But we do not hold the idea that they are too big to fail.

“That would jeopardize good corporate governance and create a moral hazard,” said Takenaka, who is also economics minister.